Women’s Foundation of Minnesota Awards $250,000 in Reproductive Freedom Fund Grants

(March 26 — Minneapolis) Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFM) announced $250,000 in community investments through its Reproductive Freedom Fund to support reproductive justice: the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. The Reproductive Freedom Fund invests in each of these four components, in addition to work that advances systems change for reproductive justice as it intersects with race.

In WFM’s impact area of Holistic Well-being and Reproductive Justice, the Reproductive Freedom Fund resources organizations and programs providing essential healthcare. Our statewide research and listening shows that access to healthcare is inequitable, which has a ripple effect on overall well-being for women, girls, and gender-expansive people. New Reproductive Freedom Fund grants each include $10,000 to support staff wellness and development for organizational sustainability.

Grantee-Partners:

Funding Category: The Right to Have a Child
Ain Dah Yung Center | $50,000 (St. Paul) — To support the Integrated Care for High-Risk Pregnancy (ICHRP) program, designed to provide integrated, culturally supportive perinatal care to American Indian people at high risk for low birth weight and preterm births.

Funding Category: Bodily Autonomy
Aliveness Project | $50,000 (Minneapolis) — To ensure trans women and gender-expansive individuals have access to holistic care and community resources, including expanded programs such as Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), free HIV testing, and PrEP. Dismantling barriers to healthcare access is part of increasing services and care for trans women of color.

Funding Category: The Right to Parent in Safe and Sustainable Communities
Divine Konnections Inc. | $50,000 (Duluth) — To implement and train staff on the organization’s Parenting & Child Development curriculum, facilitate Circle of Security parenting classes, provide parenting relief and respite care, attend court and decipher reunification plans, offer specialized programming, connect families to needed services/resources, and address staff wellness. Divine Konnections provides affordable housing and housing stabilization services for BIPOC young mothers and families in Duluth, MN.

Funding Category: Systems Change
Gender Justice | $50,000 (St. Paul) — To support the UnRestrict coalition, providing ongoing meetings, resources, and unified efforts to maintain the needs of all coalition members. The coalition is focused on exploring what community health care looks like in our current environment, with federal attacks on the health needs and autonomy of women, gender nonconforming, and trans people.

Funding Category: The Right Not to Have a Child
WE Health Clinic | $50,000 (Duluth) — To support patients’ ability to make informed and confident health decisions by providing accessible, low-cost or no-cost sexual, reproductive, abortion, and gender-affirming care. WE Health Clinic is the only abortion provider in northeastern MN.